4 ms·

The infection fatality rate for this virus is somewhere between 0.5% and 1%, heavily skewed to the oldest members of the population. This is most reflective of

by irq11 6y ago

The infection fatality rate for this virus is somewhere between 0.5% and 1%, heavily skewed to the oldest members of the population. This is most reflective of the chance that an infected person will actually die, if you don’t take age into account. For younger people, the risk of death is quite low. In NYC, for example, IFR from ages 0-17 is 0, and for 18-44 is 0.019%. The hospitalization rates for those two age brackets are 0.02% and 0.2%, respectively. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

kaoD 6y ago
> The infection fatality rate for this virus is somewhere between 0.5% and 1% Source? Your link only has CFR (and >10%). In my country's (CFR ~15%) antibody study (reminder: preliminary data) the IFR is ~1.5%. Both pretty close to initial estimates. > heavily skewed to the oldest members of the population And? Either way: the huge influx of patients completely collapsed the healthcare system, which made it harder to treat everyone else.
- taeric 6y ago
  I don't think the argument is to not care about the older group. But it is possible more than just deaths are skewed to them. Is also possible age is just a proxy to what the real risk factor is. (My money is still on exposure to lung weakening environments.) That said, I think the natural next step for this argument is targeted testing at younger populations to see what their IFR is. With stronger (read: expensive) measures to isolate long term care facilities. Occupants, care givers, cooks, cleaners, all. (If the immunity antibody story plays out, work on ways to get antibody positive people in those positions.) And I will again point out. I'm a random internet poster. No, nobody should do something just because I think it makes sense. :)
- irq11 6y ago
  ”Source? Your link only has CFR (and >10%)” The link I provided has IFR, and is where I got the NYC numbers I quoted. They’re in the bar graph, expressed as rates per 100k. The best reference I know of for a global, age-adjusted IFR as of early April is here (their estimate is 0.66%): https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099... However, more recent papers have come out, suggesting much lower values. For example, this paper estimates a a value of 0.08% for patients under 70, using antibody data in blood donors in Denmark: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075291v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075291v... My stated estimate is conservative. If anything we are continually reducing the number as we gather more data on prevalence. Regardless, a range of 0.5-1% is a safe bound for the highest quality estimates of IFR. The values cited by the OP (>>1.5%) are far too high, and based on severity-biased samples were gathered early in the pandemic.
  - kaoD 6y ago
    > They’re in the bar graph, expressed as rates per 100k. AFAICT that's per 100k total population, not per 100k infected (which amounts to 0.2% total FR citywide, not even IFR). Or am I missing the graph you mean? > The values cited by the OP (>>1.5%) are far too high, and based on severity-biased samples were gathered early in the pandemic. I am OP. They're based on an antibody study currently ongoing in my country so... no, they're not far too high nor severity-biased. (I'm trying to find links in English, but no luck so far).
taeric 6y ago
I actually have been trying to push not looking at a single IFR. It severely undersells just how dangerous this is to the elderly. And, oddly, significantly oversells how dangerous this is to everyone else. Note I am not pushing for just letting go. But I do feel efforts could be made that are more targeted to the vulnerable population.
azinman2 6y ago
I see this style of thought a lot, which I find extremely short sided and problematic. It’s like “well they were old anyway so who cares if they die.” Elderly are people too! And just because they’re of a certain age doesn’t mean they were right on the edge of death. My parents are in their 70s/80s, but coronavirus aside, are in great health and I have no reason to think they wouldn’t live another couple of decades like their parents did. Numbers like 0.5% sound small as an abstract concept, but 0.5% of the US population is still 1.6M ppl. That’s a lot!
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Two observations. One is assume your grand parents get it. For them the CFR is probably 10%. Which means 35% chance one or more of your grand parents will die. The other is peoples social networks tend to skew towards their own age group. But not exclusively. So older people have networks with lots of other old people. Which reminds me I showed up in San Francisco in the mid 90's. I missed the HIV carnage of the 80's. But I have gay friends who are my friends because HIV killed most of their friends and they had to start over.
- irq11 6y ago
  ” I see this style of thought a lot, which I find extremely short sided and problematic. It’s like “well they were old anyway so who cares if they die.” I challenge you to quote the portion of my comment where I said anything resembling this. I stated facts about IFR and its strong age-dependence. I made no judgments about what policies we should pursue based on these facts.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    You’re right — you didn’t have any judgments per se now that I re-read this. The language was very similar to a lot of arguments people are currently making why we shouldn’t care so much about the virus.

by irq11 6y ago

kaoD 6y ago

> The infection fatality rate for this virus is somewhere between 0.5% and 1% Source? Your link only has CFR (and >10%). In my country's (CFR ~15%) antibody study (reminder: preliminary data) the IFR is ~1.5%. Both pretty close to initial estimates. > heavily skewed to the oldest members of the population And? Either way: the huge influx of patients completely collapsed the healthcare system, which made it harder to treat everyone else.

taeric 6y ago
I don't think the argument is to not care about the older group. But it is possible more than just deaths are skewed to them. Is also possible age is just a proxy to what the real risk factor is. (My money is still on exposure to lung weakening environments.) That said, I think the natural next step for this argument is targeted testing at younger populations to see what their IFR is. With stronger (read: expensive) measures to isolate long term care facilities. Occupants, care givers, cooks, cleaners, all. (If the immunity antibody story plays out, work on ways to get antibody positive people in those positions.) And I will again point out. I'm a random internet poster. No, nobody should do something just because I think it makes sense. :)
irq11 6y ago
”Source? Your link only has CFR (and >10%)” The link I provided has IFR, and is where I got the NYC numbers I quoted. They’re in the bar graph, expressed as rates per 100k. The best reference I know of for a global, age-adjusted IFR as of early April is here (their estimate is 0.66%): https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(20)30243-7.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099... However, more recent papers have come out, suggesting much lower values. For example, this paper estimates a a value of 0.08% for patients under 70, using antibody data in blood donors in Denmark: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075291v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075291v... My stated estimate is conservative. If anything we are continually reducing the number as we gather more data on prevalence. Regardless, a range of 0.5-1% is a safe bound for the highest quality estimates of IFR. The values cited by the OP (>>1.5%) are far too high, and based on severity-biased samples were gathered early in the pandemic.
- kaoD 6y ago
  > They’re in the bar graph, expressed as rates per 100k. AFAICT that's per 100k total population, not per 100k infected (which amounts to 0.2% total FR citywide, not even IFR). Or am I missing the graph you mean? > The values cited by the OP (>>1.5%) are far too high, and based on severity-biased samples were gathered early in the pandemic. I am OP. They're based on an antibody study currently ongoing in my country so... no, they're not far too high nor severity-biased. (I'm trying to find links in English, but no luck so far).

taeric 6y ago

I actually have been trying to push not looking at a single IFR. It severely undersells just how dangerous this is to the elderly. And, oddly, significantly oversells how dangerous this is to everyone else. Note I am not pushing for just letting go. But I do feel efforts could be made that are more targeted to the vulnerable population.

azinman2 6y ago

I see this style of thought a lot, which I find extremely short sided and problematic. It’s like “well they were old anyway so who cares if they die.” Elderly are people too! And just because they’re of a certain age doesn’t mean they were right on the edge of death. My parents are in their 70s/80s, but coronavirus aside, are in great health and I have no reason to think they wouldn’t live another couple of decades like their parents did. Numbers like 0.5% sound small as an abstract concept, but 0.5% of the US population is still 1.6M ppl. That’s a lot!

Gibbon1 6y ago
Two observations. One is assume your grand parents get it. For them the CFR is probably 10%. Which means 35% chance one or more of your grand parents will die. The other is peoples social networks tend to skew towards their own age group. But not exclusively. So older people have networks with lots of other old people. Which reminds me I showed up in San Francisco in the mid 90's. I missed the HIV carnage of the 80's. But I have gay friends who are my friends because HIV killed most of their friends and they had to start over.
irq11 6y ago
” I see this style of thought a lot, which I find extremely short sided and problematic. It’s like “well they were old anyway so who cares if they die.” I challenge you to quote the portion of my comment where I said anything resembling this. I stated facts about IFR and its strong age-dependence. I made no judgments about what policies we should pursue based on these facts.
- azinman2 6y ago
  You’re right — you didn’t have any judgments per se now that I re-read this. The language was very similar to a lot of arguments people are currently making why we shouldn’t care so much about the virus.